Megadrought Might Happen in American Southwest

The American Southwest is at risk of a megadrought that can last for more than 35 years if its temperature continues to rise.

Science Daily reported that megadroughts are rare events that occur once or twice in a millennium. This can happen if a place heats up more than 2 degrees Celsius.

In the case of the American Southwest, if the place continues to heat up there's a 20 to 50 percent chance of a megadrought.

Toby Ault from Cornell University said that the temperature has a huge effect on megadrought. He believes that to avoid increasing the chances of a megadrought there's a need to cut greenhouse emissions.

He also said that the tree rings in the American Southwest shows megadrought evidence that happened between 1300 and 1100 B.C. Nature World News reported that America might experience that's worse than the American Dust Bowl.

The American Dust Bowl happened the 1930s Texas, Oklahoma, Kansan, Colorado and New Mexico, while, Chicago, New York and Washington experienced dust storms.

During those times, there was a 10-year drought that caused a decline on the agricultural products of the country. Even though he and his colleagues found evidence of increases in precipitation in today's atmosphere, megadrouht can still occur.

Ault stressed that megadrought can still happen in the future similar to what happened in the past. It is important that the American Southwest learn to conserve their water resources to help them survive as their climate continue to change.

A megadrought happening in America will have detrimental effect on the water resources of the Southwest.

They also said that California already experienced severe drought where 62 percent of its population was affected. There's a 90 percent chance of this state experiencing megadrought.

Researchers believe that the sooner people take this event seriously and started planning on what to do to prevent this event, the better.